Autoimmunity is an international, peer reviewed journal that publishes articles of clinical and basic science on the pathogenesis, immunology, genetics, molecular biology, and treatment of autoimmune diseases. In addition to the basic mechanisms and elements of the immune system, the journal focuses on the autoimmune processes associated with systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren syndrome, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and other systemic and organ-specific autoimmune diseases. The journal is not restricted to any disease type or clinical speciality, but reflects the areas where scientific progress is most rapid and clinical applications significant and widespread.

The journal is valuable to clinicians and researchers in immunology and molecular biology.

About the journal

Autoimmunity is an international, peer reviewed journal, publishing high-quality, original research. Please see the journal’s Aims & Scope for information about its focus and peer-review policy.

Please note that this journal only publishes manuscripts in English.

This journal accepts the following article types: Original Articles, Review Articles, Letters to the Editor, Commentaries and Book Reviews.

Original articles should include the following distinct sections:

Introduction: This section should state the background to and purpose of the study.

Methods: Please identify the methods, mechanisms, and procedures in sufficient detail to allow others to reproduce the results, and describe statistical methods with enough detail to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. Autoimmunity requires that studies involving animals/humans be approved by an institutional review board, in accordance with approved published guidelines, prior to actually performing the research and publishing the data. This approval should be explicitly stated in the methods section.

Results: Please present your results concisely and accurately. For studies reporting clinical trials, include the sample size of each data point, with p-values and confidence intervals quoted for both significant and non-significant findings.

Discussion and Conclusions: This should include implications of the findings and their limitations, with reference to other relevant studies and the possibilities these suggest for future research.

The body of a Review Article should be a comprehensive, scholarly evidence-based review of the literature, accompanied by critical analysis and leading to reasonable conclusions. Wherever appropriate, details of the literature search methodology should be provided, i.e. the databases searched, the search terms and inclusive dates, and any selectivity criteria imposed. Wherever possible, use primary resources, avoiding "Data on File", "Poster" or other unpublished references.

Letters to the Editor will be considered for publication subject to editor approval and provided that the content relates to articles published in the journal. Letters should be received less than six months after publication of the original work in question. Pending editor approval, letters will be submitted to the author of the original paper in order that a reply be published simultaneously.

Commentaries: All commentary topics must be checked with the editor prior to submission. Commentaries should be knowledge-based or consensus-type articles (e.g. working group statement) expressing objective opinions, experiences or perspectives on an important area related to autoimmunity.

Book Reviews: Autoimmunity considers a limited number of book reviews. Book review ideas must be checked with the editor prior to submission.

Peer review

Taylor & Francis is committed to peer-review integrity and upholding the highest standards of review. Once your paper has been assessed for suitability by the editor, it will then be single blind peer-reviewed by independent, anonymous expert referees. Find out more about what to expect during peer review and read our guidance on publishing ethics.

Preparing your paper

All authors submitting to medicine, biomedicine, health sciences, allied and public health journals should conform to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, prepared by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Structure

Your paper should be compiled in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text to be structured in this order introduction, methods, results, discussion and conclusion; acknowledgments; declaration of interest statement; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list).

Word limits

Please include a word count for your paper.

A typical paper for this journal should be no more than 6000 words; this limit does not include tables, references, figure captions, footnotes, endnotes.

Style guidelines

Please refer to these style guidelines when preparing your paper, rather than any published articles or a sample copy.

Please use American spelling style consistently throughout your manuscript.

Please use double quotation marks, except where "a quotation is 'within' a quotation". Please note that long quotations should be indented without quotation marks.

Autoimmunity conforms to the CSE style guidelines, using the NLM style for references. For general abbreviations and nomenclature, authors should consult the latest edition of the Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers. Authors should write in clear, concise English. Language and grammar should be consistent with Fowler's English Usage; spelling and meaning of words should conform to Webster's Dictionary. If English is not your native language, please ensure the manuscript has been reviewed by a native speaker. Please note: extensive rewriting of the text will not be undertaken by the editorial staff.

For editing resources available to authors please see Taylor & Francis Editing Services.

Please note the following general style guidelines:

Do not use the term "significant" unless p-values are provided. Show p-values as <0.001 or to 2 or 3 decimal places.

Units and Measurement: the Système International (SI) system should be used for all scientific units. Authors can refer to the SI Conversion Calculator to convert conventional units into SI units. Please refer to the The CSE Manual for Authors for appropriate metric symbols.

When a trademarked pharmaceutical or other product is named in the research, it must be accompanied by the generic name as well. According to journal style, after first mention, only the generic name should be used. Do not use proprietary names in article titles or in the abstract.

Latin terminology, including microbiological and species nomenclature, should be italicized. However, for gene symbols, please favour accepted abbreviations rather than full spellings (see the specific nomenclature guidelines below).

Upper case characters in headings and references should be used sparingly, e.g. only the first word of paper titles, subheadings and any proper nouns begin upper case; similarly for the titles of papers from journals in the references and elsewhere.

All acronyms for national agencies, examinations, etc., should be spelled out the first time they are introduced in text or references. Thereafter the acronym can be used if appropriate, e.g. "The work of the Assessment of Performance Unit (APU) in the early 1980s ..." and subsequently, "The APU studies of achievement ...", in a reference "(Department of Education and Science [DES] 1989a)"

Wherever possible, please do not label people according to their disability or disease. Instead, use person-first language (persons with diabetes, children with asthma, etc)

Please do not use commas in numbers with more than three digits. In 4-digit numbers, the digits are set closed up. For numbers of 10 000 or greater, a half-space or thin space is used to separate every digit from the right-most integer or decimal point. For decimals, use the form 0.05 (not .05, × 05 or 0×05)

For chemical nomenclature, please use the Subject Index of Chemical Abstracts.

Formatting and templates

Papers may be submitted in any standard format, including Word and LaTeX. Figures should be saved separately from the text. To assist you in preparing your paper, we provide formatting templates.

A LaTeX template is available for this journal.

Word templates are available for this journal. Please save the template to your hard drive, ready for use.

If you are not able to use the templates via the links (or if you have any other template queries) please contact authortemplate@tandf.co.uk

References

Please use this reference style guide when preparing your paper. An EndNote output style is also available to assist you.

Checklist: what to include

Author details. Please ensure everyone meeting the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) requirements for authorship is included as an author of your paper. Please include all authors’ full names, affiliations, postal addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses on the title page. Where available, please also include ORCID identifiers and social media handles (Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn). One author will need to be identified as the corresponding author, with their email address normally displayed in the article PDF (depending on the journal) and the online article. Authors’ affiliations are the affiliations where the research was conducted. If any of the named co-authors moves affiliation during the peer-review process, the new affiliation can be given as a footnote. Please note that no changes to affiliation can be made after your paper is accepted. Read more on authorship.

A non-structured abstract of no more than 500 words. Read tips on writing your abstract.

Graphical abstract (Not mandatory). This is an image to give readers a clear idea of the content of your article. It should be a maximum width of 525 pixels. If your image is narrower than 525 pixels, please place it on a white background 525 pixels wide to ensure the dimensions are maintained. Save the graphical abstract as a .jpg, .png, or .gif. Please do not embed it in the manuscript file but save it as a separate file, labelled GraphicalAbstract1.

You can opt to include a video abstract with your article. Find out how these can help your work reach a wider audience, and what to think about when filming.

At least five (5) keywords. Read making your article more discoverable, including information on choosing a title and search engine optimization.

For single agency grants: This work was supported by the[Funding Agency] under Grant [number xxxx].

For multiple agency grants: This work was supported by the [funding Agency 1]; under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency 2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency 3] under Grant [number xxxx].

Disclosure statement. This is to acknowledge any financial interest or benefit that has arisen from the direct applications of your research. Further guidance on what is a conflict of interest and how to disclose it.

Biographical note (Not mandatory) . Please supply a short biographical note for each author. This could be adapted from your departmental website or academic networking profile and should be relatively brief.

Geolocation information (Not mandatory) . Submitting a geolocation information section, as a separate paragraph before your acknowledgements, means we can index your paper’s study area accurately in JournalMap’s geographic literature database and make your article more discoverable to others.

Supplemental online material. Supplemental material can be a video, dataset, fileset, sound file or anything which supports (and is pertinent to) your paper. We publish supplemental material online via Figshare. Find out more about supplemental material and how to submit it with your article.

Figures. Figures should be high quality (1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for color, at the correct size). Figures should be saved as TIFF, PostScript or EPS files. More information on how to prepare artwork.

Tables. Tables should present new information rather than duplicating what is in the text. Readers should be able to interpret the table without reference to the text. Please supply editable files.

Equations. If you are submitting your manuscript as a Word document, please ensure that equations are editable. More information about mathematical symbols and equations.

Units. Please use SI units (non-italicized).

Using third-party material in your paper

You must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in your article. The use of short extracts of text and some other types of material is usually permitted, on a limited basis, for the purposes of criticism and review without securing formal permission. If you wish to include any material in your paper for which you do not hold copyright, and which is not covered by this informal agreement, you will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owner prior to submission. More information on requesting permission to reproduce work(s) under copyright.

Submitting your paper

This journal uses ScholarOne Manuscripts to manage the peer-review process. If you haven't submitted a paper to this journal before, you will need to create an account in the submission centre. Please read the guidelines above and then submit your paper in the relevant author centre where you will find user guides and a helpdesk.

If you are submitting in LaTeX, please convert the files to PDF beforehand (you may also need to upload or send your LaTeX source files with the PDF).

Please note that Autoimmunity uses Crossref™ to screen papers for unoriginal material. By submitting your paper to Autoimmunity you are agreeing to originality checks during the peer-review and production processes.

On acceptance, we recommend that you keep a copy of your Accepted Manuscript. Find out more about sharing your work.